📮 Books and Letters That Shape the Way I Think
“Reading is the nourishment that lets you do thinking.” — Charlie Munger
In investing, the right book doesn’t give you answers.
It sharpens your filters.
It teaches you how to think when the noise is loud and the data uncertain.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that clarity, discipline, and temperament matter far more than prediction.
And these are the books and letters I keep returning to — not because they’re popular, but because they teach me how to stay grounded and long-term focused in a short-term world.
📚 Books I Keep Returning To
Poor Charlie’s Almanack — Charles T. Munger
Mental models, inversion, and multi-disciplinary thinking.
This book isn’t a toolkit — it’s a worldview.
“Take a simple idea and take it seriously.”
The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel
Behavior > Spreadsheets.
This book reminds you that personal finance is more about temperament than technicals.
“Wealth is what you don’t see.”
Capital Returns — Edward Chancellor / Marathon Asset Management
An underappreciated gem on how capital flows shape industry cycles.
Sharpens your instinct for when to lean in — and when to step back.
Quality Investing — Lawrence Cunningham et al.
A clear and structured lens to understand true business quality.
Goes beyond ratios into strategy, culture, and resilience.
From Darwin to Munger — Peter Bevelin
A philosophical map of thinking better.
Draws from biology, psychology, and rationality — all layered onto the craft of investing.
The Intelligent Investor — Benjamin Graham
The foundation stone of value investing.
Margin of safety. Mr. Market. Timeless ideas delivered without ego.
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits — Philip A. Fisher
Where I first discovered the power of scuttlebutt.
A reminder that real insight comes from being in the field, not just staring at a screen.
✉️ Letters That Shape My Thinking
Berkshire Hathaway Letters — Warren Buffett
The masterclass in clarity, long-termism, and alignment.
A blueprint on how to build trust over decades.
Howard Marks Memos — Oaktree Capital
Calm, cyclical, second-level thinking.
These are the memos I return to when the world gets noisy.
“You can’t predict. You can prepare.”
Nomad Partnership Letters — Nick Sleep & Qais Zakaria
Quiet wisdom from one of the most underrated fund managers.
Their idea of “scale economies shared” is a lens I now use everywhere.
Akre Capital Letters — Chuck Akre
Chuck’s “three-legged stool” — business quality, management quality, reinvestment runway — is one of the cleanest investing frameworks I’ve found.
Amazon Shareholder Letters — Jeff Bezos
Crystal clarity on customer obsession, culture as moat, and long-term decisions. The 1997 letter alone is a masterclass in focus.
“We are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.”
🧭 Final Thought
The best books don’t age.
The best letters don’t shout.
They whisper — over time, across cycles, and through all the noise.
These are the voices I’ve chosen to learn from.
Not because they tell me what to buy.
But because they remind me how to think — with patience, discipline, and humility.
If you're building your own investing lens, I hope this reading list gives you a solid compass.
Until next time,
Ravi Srivastava
Long-term investor | Author, Postcard from India
📬 Reflections on investing, India, and quiet compounding